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the twists and turns of
romantic suspense or what i learned from playing barbies
I cracked the code of romantic suspense about a year
ago, but I have to admit it didn't happen in one of
the many seminars and classes I've taken on the topic.
Although I regularly kneel at the altars of Brockmann,
Howard and Roberts in my effort to improve my writing,
my personal ah-hah! moment occurred while playing Barbies.
Yes, mothers of young girls do this. Sure, we act like
it's such a chore, such a distraction. Must I dress
Brunette Barbie again? (What an oxymoron that name
is.) Do I have to line up all those precious little
shoes and pick which ones Velvet Red Barbie (whom I
secretly call Stripper Barbie) should wear for her
night out with Roller Skating Barbie? (Ken hasn't arrived
at our house yet.)
While coiffing Velvet Red's long blond tresses one day, I was doubling
my parenting efforts by trying to teach my daughter how to braid. As
I explained the concept and struggled to manipulate her little fingers,
I had a romantic suspense breakthrough. And frankly, it changed my work.
It took my stories from high potential to publishable.
Romantic suspense is exactly like
braiding.
With every scene, the writer must interweave three or four strands of
story lines so neatly that the reader never even realizes that she is
moving from one to the next. As she journeys from murderous suspense
to developing romance to family reconciliation to light subplot, she
should be lost in the beauty, simplicity and utter elegance of the braid.
One that starts with three or four disparate strands but ends with a
neat twist, tied up with the perfect bow. In essence, it should be impossible
to pull out one strand and maintain the overall effect. All along its
flowing length, the lines twirl and loop with no stray hairs sticking
out at odd angles and no single strand ending too far in advance of the
others.
Once I applied that braiding concept to my manuscript, I no longer wrote
scenes that didn't take the story forward. I no longer felt that I was "stuck
in the romance" and nothing was happening to propel the suspense.
And I realized with tremendous clarity that romance and suspense alone
are not enough. If they were, all you would have is two overlapping and
twisting strands, not the beautiful intermingling that results from the
weaving of three or more separate threads.
Unfortunately for those who prefer "fly through the mist" writing,
it is difficult to complete a romantic suspense without detailed and
arduous plotting. It would be like braiding in the dark without a comb,
a generous amount of gel or the right ribbon for the end. Plotting is
critical because at some point, you have to know who your villain is
and you'll have to know how that body came to be dead or else your heroine
and hero will have a heck of a time trying to figure it out. (And, yes,
you really should have a dead body or the threat of one.) You need to
present clues to the resolution of each story line so that the reader
believes all is plausible. And, finally, you must ensure that the process
of resolution itself is carried out over several scenes and chapters
and doesn't all happen on the last page. Save that page for the bow.
Plotting is a sophisticated form of braiding.
When I realized this, I changed my plotting process. I still go through
many different iterations of an outline. They include a traditional numbered
outline that can usually take me through five chapters in detail and
ten with vague bullet points. Then I write the Suzanne Brockmann-type
of 20 page outline. I also make a list, cleverly titled "Things
That Need to Happen." These are as many as 25 or 30 action points
that will tell the story. They range from "h/h make love" to "h/h
find body." I plan for each to be a scene, although the best scenes
combine several points in each.
Then I go to a plotting board. I have divided my plotting board into
20 blocks for chapters. I may have more chapters, but this works to partition
my story into four major sections and allows me to incorporate a turning
point at the end of each quarter. Somewhere near the halfway mark, I
know I need two 180-degree turns, one to kick up the suspense to heart
pounding level and the other to intensify the romance to, well, a heart
pounding level.
I "braid" scenes on my board with colors. First I assign a "type" to
each scene. It is a romance scene, a suspense scene, a subplot one scene
or a subplot two scene. A scene, of course, can deal with one or all
of the above, but it is usually weighted‚ toward one or another.
Each scene gets a colored Post-It note: pink for romance, green for suspense,
yellow for first subplot, blue for secondary subplot. Then I lay out
my scenes as far in advance as I possibly can. I can rarely plot beyond
five chapters. But I do have that trusty list of things that need to
happen‚ so I make Post-Its for each and throw them all over bottom
of the board with no rhyme or reason. As I reach the end of what I've
plotted and written, I take those colored squares and braid them into
the remaining chapter blocks.
Although I rely on my gut instinct to answer the question "What
feels like it should happen next?" I also depend upon the visual
effect that my colors offer. I stand back and look at the board. It should
literally look like a weaving of the colors, no single one far outweighing
the others. (Of course there will be more pink and green, but the blue
and yellow have to balance them out.) It's easy for me to tell when a
scene doesn't advance the story because I have difficulty assigning it
a color. If it doesn't address one of my four story threads, I don't
need it. Each scene must continue the long and elegant braid that the
reader is following. If it doesn't, no matter how clever the dialogue
or how mercilessly it tugs at the reader's heartstrings, I cut it.
When it is finished, the braid is a thing of beauty. Twisty and smooth,
flowing gracefully and catching different lights with each movement of
its owner. Tumbling down to Barbie's two-inch waistline and accented
with a delicate pink bow.
To many beginners, this process is as difficult as winding those silk
tresses around clumsy three-year-old fingers. It can be frustrating as
one strand falls loose and another, oddly enough, ends before you want
it to. Of course, if you're stuck, you can always take a trip to Toys
R Us for some inspiration from Mattel. Next time, I think, we're going
to pop for an uptight, conservative Ken doll, plunk him in the pink Corvette
with Stripper Barbie and see how long it takes for them to get tied up
in knots.
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